Page:The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.djvu/249

 See for instance Schortinghuis, Het innige Christendom (1740 proscribed by the States-General)!

47. Thus, as we shall see later, in countless passages, especially the conclusion, of Baxter's Christian Directory. This recommendation of worldly activity as a means of overcoming one's own feeling of moral inferiority is reminiscent of Pascal's psychological interpretation of the impulse of acquisition and ascetic activity as means to deceive oneself about one's own moral worthlessness. For him the belief in predestination and the conviction of the original sinfulness of everything pertaining to the flesh resulted only in renunciation of the world and the recommendation of contemplation as the sole means of lightening the burden of sin and attaining certainty of salvation. Of the orthodox Catholic and the Jansenist versions of the idea of calling an acute analysis has been made by Dr. Paul Honigsheim in the dissertation cited above (part of a larger study, which it is hoped will be continued). The Jansenists lacked every trace of a connection between certainty of salvation and worldly activity. Their concept of calling has, even more strongly than the Lutheran or even the orthodox Catholic, the sense of acceptance of the situation in life in which one finds oneself, sanctioned not only, as in Catholicism by the social order, but also by the voice of one's own conscience (Honigsheim, op. cit., pp. 139 ff.).

48. The very lucidly written sketch of Lobstein in the Festgabe für H. Holtzmann, which starts from his view-point, may also be compared with the following. It has been criticized for too sharp an emphasis on the certitudo salutis. But just at this point Calvin's theology must be distinguished from Calvinism, the theological system from the needs of religious practice. All the religious movements which have affected large masses have started from the question, "How can I become certain of my salvation?" As we have said, it not only plays a central part in this case but in the history of all religions, even in India. And could it well be otherwise?

49. Of course it cannot be denied that the full development of this conception did not take place until late Lutheran times (Prætorius, Nicolai, Meisner). It is present, however, even in Johannes Gerhard, quite in the sense meant here. Hence Ritschl in Book IV of his Geschichte des Pietismus (II, pp. 3 ff.) interprets the introduction of this concept into Lutheranism as a Renaissance or an adoption of Catholic elements. He does not deny (p. 10) that the problem of individual salvation was the same for Luther as for the Catholic Mystics, but he believes that the solution was precisely opposite in the two cases. I can, of course, have no competent opinion of my own. That the atmosphere of Die Freiheit eines Christenmenschen is different, on the one hand, from the sweet flirtation with the liebem Jesulein of the later writers, and on the other from Tauler's religious feeling, is naturally obvious to anyone. Similarly the retention of